One dog’s search for courage and another dog’s search for fun.

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Training update 2/27/09

I haven’t written much about our training lately, partly because I’m still trying to find that next big project for Miles now that he’s past the teeter stuff, but mostly because I haven’t been doing much training…oops.

The super great news is that the Snooker flag/teeter incident has done nothing to ruffle Miles’ feathers about the obstacle–yeah! He’s still just as confident in class and in practice as he was before, so clearly it was just a flag problem. Last night in our Advanced Sequences class after two successful teeter performances my instructor secretly placed a plastic chair with her jacket on it right next to the pivot. As soon as Miles saw that he was like “oh no way can I do that momma”. We tried a few times without success so she removed the jacket but left the chair and he did it 🙂 She then put the jacket back and he did it again! She moved the chair and jacket to the other side and once again, no go. After another attempt he was fine. She then experimented with hanging her jacket on some of the jump wings which at first bothered him, but he then didn’t seem to care. So my next step with him is to just do a lot of proofing…mostly with the teeter, but with other obstacles as well. I can’t wait to put all sorts of weird stuff out there for him!

With Rue I’m still working on our handling as well as continuing her teeter games and Linda Mecklenburg’s one jump work (with the bar extremely low). I’m also working on her driving onto the table ( just the top on the ground), driving off the table and also getting quickly into the down position. I’m also working on her stays as well as her lying down while I’m still moving (proofing for the table, etc.). I’ve also decided that I’m going to train running contacts with Silvia Trkman’s method (http://www.silvia.trkman.net/cone.htm). This should be enough of a project for me for a while!!

That’s about it. I’ll try to get some of our sessions on tape soon. Both dogs can now put all four feet into a very small (4.5″ container) and they’re doing great with their perch work and other shaping/body awareness games.